Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

I know some people are die hard Aldi lovers. But, I went to Aldi the other day and then stopped by Greyson’s Produce Stand on the way home. It was almost half the price! You MUST go there before Aldi. The produce was fresh, didn’t smell weird, nothing I had to throw away (like I sometimes have to with Aldi) and the people were very friendly. No, they didn’t pay me to write this 🙂 I had to tell everyone nearby OFallon MO to check it out! It is just south of 70 off Hwy K. And they have stuff reasonably priced that is hard to find like fresh coconut. You can also buy watermelons there and there is a $1 bin full of bagged produce.

Recipe: I have been working on another whole wheat pizza dough recipe because the ones in the past all contained some all-purpose flour. Additionally, many of my previous whole wheat pizza doughs are tough to work with and don’t flatten out properly. This one worked great! I have two methods to putting it together just in case you don’t plan ahead and make it the night before. The other method lets you make the pizza dough the same day! This made one large medium crust pizza – not too thin and not too thick. It had a good chew and was so easy to put together that my 4 year old did it.

For those of you who do homemade pizza night once a week – this one might be fun to try! Plus it is 100% whole wheat flour. Not that “3 cups of all purpose flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour” that you see quite often.

Why orange juice in the recipe? Because the orange juice offsets the bitter taste (tannins I believe) of the whole wheat.

The above pizza is a layer of garlic/olive oil, caramelized onions, spinach and mozzarella cheese. (I would have preferred fontina, but used what we had on hand!)

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Author: Mary Ellen P. Riley / Whisk Together

Ingredients

3 cups (12 ounces) white whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons instant yeast*

1 and 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons room temperature orange juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 cups warm water

*use 3 teaspoons instant yeast if not rising overnight

Instructions

In a large measuring cup, mix the warm water, yeast, orange juice and honey. Allow to sit for 5 minutes just to be sure if your yeast is alive and well (or if you know it’s alive, skip this step and mix everything together).

In a great big bowl, mix the white whole wheat flour, salt and olive oil. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Knead dough for 5 minutes in the mixer, bread machine or your hands. Allow to rest and rise covered for 30 minutes.

At this point, put it in the fridge and let it rise overnight (if using 2 tsp yeast) or later in the day (using 3 tsp yeast).